State Department Initiative to Prepare Women for Public Service
15 December 2011
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton greets IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde before the two joined the Inaugural Women in Public Service Colloquium.
Washington — Forty women from 37 countries joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the U.S. State Department December 15 to begin a new campaign to empower women. The Women in Public Service Project (WPSP) aspires to create greater gender balance in political and civic circles so that leadership is at least 50 percent female by the year 2050.
As the keynote speaker, Clinton spelled out why the project is being organized. “Women account for more than 50 percent of the global population, but hold less than 20 percent of all parliamentary seats across the globe,” Clinton said. She expressed embarrassment that the number of U.S. elected offices held by women is lower than average: 17 percent of the Congress, and 25 percent of state legislative seats.
Some women who have made the journey to power joined Clinton in Washington to launch the campaign: Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund; Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of state; Florence Chenoweth, minister of agriculture for the Republic of Liberia; and Atifete Jahjaga, president of Kosovo.
Clinton turned to the experience of India to demonstrate how women in power can influence events. A 2003 constitutional amendment required that women hold more offices, and in a few years, majority opinion endorsed what women had done to improve public services when they held positions of power.
“In household surveys done in India conducted among both women and men in these villages, a majority agreed that conditions had improved, that they had to pay fewer bribes to get heard, and that they believed women made capable leaders. And over the course of two election cycles, men cast a growing number of votes for women,” Clinton said. “Now, that is a huge shift in the political landscape of the world’s largest democracy.”
Elite U.S. institutions of higher learning are also involved in the effort. The Seven Sisters women’s colleges, leading advocates of women’s higher education, are supporting the WPSP. The five colleges — Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley — bring institutional prestige and well-connected alumni networks to the goal of increasing women’s empowerment.
(The Seven Sisters lost two of its original number: Vassar College became coeducational and Radcliffe merged with Harvard.)
“Public service will never truly be public until women are equitable partners in shaping policies that serve the needs of humanity,” said Mount Holyoke President Lynn Pasquerella. “The Women in Public Service program will help provide women with the tools they need to take on public service roles and eliminate obstacles to shared power.” Pasquerella was quoted by the Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper, published near the Mount Holyoke campus in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
The Seven Sisters colleges will host an annual summer learning institute to train potential women leaders from around the world. Clinton said the State Department will sponsor 40 women from North Africa and the Middle East to attend the first program in 2012.
In her remarks, Clinton saluted the women of the region who had been instrumental in bringing about the changes of the last year in nations including Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. She met women in the region who were uneasy about entering politics, but Clinton said that is the arena they must enter to achieve the changes they want to see in their countries.
A State Department fact sheet outlines WPSP objectives. They include: engaging a new generation of women in public service, building a support infrastructure for female officials and providing training and mentoring as women enter public service and political leadership.